DUSHANBE, July 19, 2016, Asia-Plus — 12 neo-Nazis have been convicted in Moscow over Koran burning and killing Tajik national.
Shcherbinsky court of Moscow sentenced 12 neo-Nazis to between suspended prison for five years and 10 years in prison on July 18.
They were found guilty of burning Koran in Moscow subway and killing Tajik national.
The leader of this criminal group, Alexander Sokolov, was sentenced to 10 year in prison. He will serve his term in a high-security penal colony.
Sokolov and his associates were also found guilty of beating a group of Tajiks with metal bars. One of the victims later died.
Sokolov and the other convicts were charged with “premeditated infliction of health damage based on ethnic, racial and religious hatred,” and “inciting hatred or animosity.”
The case covers several incidents, including a video posted on the Internet in January 2014 depicting a group of men and teenage boys burning a copy of the Muslim holy book.
The video clip that sparked the investigation showed at least two men, whose faces were not visible, burning a Russian translation of the Koran and cursing the book.
Later in the video, the same voices can be heard demanding that a frightened young man on a Moscow subway train who appeared to be from Central Asia “denounce Allah.” The victim was nursing a head injury and appeared to have just been beaten.
The video also featured a Russian nationalist flag and an anti-Chechen song.
Several of the convicts were minors when the video surfaced and some are still under 18.
Sokolov, who has previous conviction, and Likhachev admitted their guilt completely, while others admitted their guilt partially.
The convicts are members of a neo-Nazi group that authorities have blamed for several killings and other crimes against ethnic minorities.
They are members of 14/88, a Russian extremist group whose leader, Alexander Sokolov, is one of the 12 convicts. They were arrested in 2014.
The phrase 14/88 is seen as a reference to the late white supremacist and convict David Lane, with 14 referring to the number of words in one of his statements and 88 to his 88 precepts — or sometimes the eighth letter in the alphabet, standing for Heil Hitler.
Police said in April 2015 that three teenagers suspected of being members of 14/88 had been detained outside Moscow and confessed to the killings of several Central Asians since 2005.
